Post #13: Le Ly Hayslip's Excerpt from “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places”
Word count: 289
Le Ly Hayslip was born in Quang Nam Province in Vietnam and lived normally till the war with the French overtook her village. Her account, “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places”, was written from her experience going back to visit her mother back in Vietnam years after she had married an American and moved to California.
The type of person that Le appears to be based on this excerpt is someone who is strong-willed, and focused. She has a mindset that helps her overcome certain trials in her imprisonment. On page 372, when all the other girls are tied up as ants bite their feet, she remained steady, saying “The ants want honey, not me, […] So I will stand to let them have it”. She alone realized that if she kicked and screamed like the other girls, she would cause more trouble for herself. Later on in the prison when she was being interrogated, she knew that in order to survive she could not just say she doesn’t know anything, but rather decided to ruin the interrogator’s game. She outsmarted her captor to the point where he threw his arms up in the air and gave up.
The direction Le goes for when writing this account makes it seem like she was writing to an audience like that of a close friend. She talks about herself in a context that is present in the situations that unfold rather that something more retrospective. Le describes her experience through scenarios that feel like she is telling the audience as it is happening.
The central idea with these pages focuses on brutality of war and how it shaped and brings things out of people that most times would have remained dormant.
Le Ly's strength in this passage shocked me. She is so smart and strategic in everything she does and all of it has purpose to her. The part of the story with the ants is so frightening. I was so scared for her and it seemed as if she was trying to calm me down in her writing by assuring the readers that she knew how to react.
ReplyDeleteLe Ly was such a young fragile girl and it baffles me how strong and powerful she is. She was brutally abused and still stayed strong not letting herself give up on fighting for herself. It truly made me feel bad for the poor young girl because her brain and body is only starting to grow, this was definitely hard for take in and understand.
ReplyDelete